A Christmas Carol Puzzler

It is Advent, a time to prepare our hearts and homes for the coming of Jesus Christ on Christmas!

To get ready for Christmas, we are teaching our youth Christmas carols, since they no long learn to sing, nor learn Christmas music in public schools (this was a parishioner's request).

So here is a new puzzler for all my youth (successfully complete it and you get a prize for Christmas) and friends on the internet.

The answer is my patron saint, and a clue is my birthday is tomorrow (December 6th), this saint's day of remembrance.

To do the puzzler fill in the blanks for the line from each carol and circle the first letter left blank in each line. Then put these 8 letters in a row, and you have my saint!

The Christmas Carols are in the order in which they occur in my Christmas Pageant (see previous blog) and provide the Episcopal Hymnal number for each one.

Here is the Puzzler: (remember circle the first letter left blank on each line)

1. "O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ra_ som captive Israel." (H56)

2. "O little town of Bethlehem, how st_ _ _ we see the lie!" (H79)

3. "Away in a manager, no _ _ ib for his bed," (H101)

4, "While shepherds watc_ their flocks by night, all seated on the ground." (H94)

5. "Hark the herald angels sing gl_ ry to the newborn king." (H87)

6. "Silent night, holy night, all is ca _ _, all is bright." (H111)

7. "We three Kings of Orient _ re, bearing gifts we traverse afar," (H128)

8. "Joy to the world! the Lord is come; let earth receive her king; let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature _ ing, ..." (H100)

Now put the eight letters in order _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _, and e-mail me or leave a comment with the answer, and you will get your prize and know my patron saint!

A Christmas Pageant

This is the picture from last year's Epiphany Pageant at St. Luke's.

I've written a new script for this year integrating ideas from pageants done in Riverside, CA, Whittier, CA, Winslow, AZ, and, of course, Prescott AZ.

All the speaking parts will be done by members of the Youth group, seated in front of the wall to the left in this picture (females) and the males will be seated on the other side, you cannot see, in dark pants and their beige St. Luke's Youth Group T-shirt. We have 2 hand held mikes. Therefore each side will share one. The Narrator is a 6th grader, and will be in the pulpit wearing his best suit.

The music will primarily be performed by the choir and organist, with the youth joining in where indicated. The final carol--"Joy to the World" will be sung by all, put with the congregation remaining seated, so they can see the cast.

To download the script for this pageant go to http://revpammulac.typepad.com/ and click on "download christmas pageant 07 word.doc"

A Sunday School Student "Puzzler"

Today my Sunday School class learned about the promises made by a person when he or she is baptised. The person either makes these promises in response to the celebrant's questions, or they are answered for him or her by a godparent.

The first three are renunciations--things one should not do, like my cats above on the top. You should NOT hit your brother or sister.

The second three are pronouncements of what one should do following Jesus Christ in love, similar to the loving picture of my cats on the bottom. Yes, they can be very kind to each other.

First find pp. 302-303 in the Book of Common Prayer.

Here is the Puzzle. (It might help if you printed this page out first.)

Fill in the word that is missing in each renunciation (First Three), and each pronouncement (second three).

Then circle the first letter of the first two questions' missing words, the second letter of the third, the third letter of the fourth, the first letter of the fifth and the first letter of the sixth.

1. Do you renounce _ _ _ _ _ and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?

2. Do you renounce the evil _ _ _ _ _ _ of this world...?

3. Do you renounce all _ _ _ _ _ _ desires that draw you from the love of God?

4. Do you _ _ _ _ to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?

5. Do you put your whole trust _ _ his grace and love?

6. Do you promise _ _ follow and obey him as your Lord?

Now that you have filled in all the blanks and circled the appropriate letter in each word. Put the six letters together in the order listed and you will have a gift you receive at your baptism.

Send me this word to me as a comment to the blog, or tell me on Sunday and you will be eligible for a prize just before Christmas! Please give your name as well as the answer in your comment.

Time Shares Work but Take Work

I finally had a 3 on a par 3 hole. Here I am triumphantly holding my purple ball. This is the 17th hole on the Penninsula Jack Nichlaus course.

Yes, Raphael came through and even gave us the $10 difference between what we had paid and should have been able to pay for a round of golf.

Still the impression that we were going to get the cost of our upgrade out of renting units here and other lovely spots in Mexico, is "spin" to pull us in or b.s. according to Harry Frankfurt, an emeritus professor of philosophy at Princeton. In his book On Bullshit, he establishes the premise that "spin" or b.s. is worse than lying for the person doing it, because in time they no longer know what is true or false but believe their made up series of not lies but fantasy versions of reality. Then this is a distorted version of reality for others to make decisions and bad for your soul!

The real helper here at Puerto Penasco, has been Susie Parker, Member Services. She has given us tips on use and potential rentals which I am going to work at. We enjoy our time-shares--and would anyone out there like to rent a suite with a kitchen and separate bedroom (sleeps 4) for a week or two on the ocean at Acapulco, Mazatlan, Cancun, Puerto Penasco, Puerto Vuerto, or Nuevo Vuerto?

For all of you whom I bought Christmas gifts for see picture of Harley Davidson pants at the top of this blog. These beautiful black stretch pants, with "Harley-Davidson" in rinestones across your bottom--could have been yours! Sadly, I did not think they would look quite right swinging down the street on anyone on my list.

Ethics and Time-Shares

This is Rafael (like the Archangel) in the truck. He sold us an upgrade of our Mayan Palace time- share in Puerto Penasco, Mexico, on Saturday with the promise of 1/2 off golf.

The only problem was, when we got to the Jack Nicklaus golf course they charged us a higher rate than promised the night before, and I did not have the $45 coupon from our check-in with us.

But Rafael drove in from the sales area and promised to "comp" our playing yesterday. Will he keep his word? Most people think we are crazy to spend so much of our vacation opportunities on time shares. We did play golf--(see picture above of my great shot on the final par 3 hole). And I found the coupon later. I will let you know tomorrow if they gave us the appropriate discount or even "comp-ed" the round!

Psalm 72:12-13 " For he shall deliver the poor who cries out in distress,

and the oppressed who has no helper.

He shall have pity on the lowly and poor;

he shall preserve the lives of the needy.

My Cat as a Priest

My cat, Hildegard of Bingen, is a Main Coon and basically runs our house.

Hildegard was an abbess who founded 2 convents in the mid-1100's. She was a mystic, visionary, and composer of music.

Her music, made popular by Anonymous Four, is a bit discordant, which is exactly the way our cat "sings."

The original Hildegard (whose saints day is September 17, about when our cat was born), never got to be a priest. So I thought it would be nice to get to see her feline image as a priest!

SS Youth Meet St. Francis

http://revpammulac.typepad.com/rev_pam_mulac/files/improvisational_drama_for_all_saints_day.docHere is an improvisational script I used with our 3rd--8th grade Sunday School class, to learn more about All Saints Day.

We had started the day learning the words and then singing--"I sing a Song of the Saints of God." My purpose was to introduce the youth to the idea that everyone could become a saint (and thus ascribe to this, over their lifetime.)

Then we read through the following script:file://improvisational_drama_for_all_saints_day.doc/

One youth wisely asked: "If you have to be dead to be a saint, how come the song said, 'you can meet them at school, or in lanes, or at sea, etc." Which baffled "St. Francis" and made me think about it. As saints are canonized after their death, but live saintly lives (known to God) while they are alive.

It was a fun skit, and I remember dramas and filmstrips from my youth, much better than lectures!

More Pictures of Youth Service

Pictures of the Youth Service at Chapel Rock, Prescott

Elements of Youth Service at Chapel Rock

In my previous post I left out the actual parts of the service I used.

• My opening was a thanksgiving collect, composed in the moment giving thanks for each of them who were present at the retreat, all the people who had helped make it happen, and then named the adult leaders present.


• Romans 5:1--6: Now that we have been put right with God through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He has brought us, by faith, into this experience of God's grace, in which we now live. We rejoice, then, in the hope we have of sharing God's glory! And we also rejoice in our troubles, because we know that trouble produces endurance, endurance brings God's approval, and his approval creates hope. This hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts byh means of the Holy Spirit, who is God's gift to us. (This is a favorite passage of mine which in NRSV has the line--"suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope...." Since the retreat was on "facing challenges" I introduced this theme with the first reading which highlights how troubles or suffering actually gives us deeper character which will lead ultimately to a great ability for hope, because of God's Spirit.


• Psalm 118:1-7, done with rap rhythm
• Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good: *
• his mercy endures for ever.
• Let Israel now proclaim,
• "His mercy endures for ever."
• Let the house of Aaron now proclaim,*
• "His mercy endures for ever."
• I called to the Lord in my distress;*
• ["His mercy endures for ever."
• The Lord is at my side, therefore I will not fear;*
• ["His mercy endures for ever."]
• The Lord is at my side to help me;*
• ["His mercy endures for ever."]

The Gospel: Luke 11: 5-10, includes the story of the man demanding 3 loaves of bread for a friend who has suddenly appeared to visit. The man at first refuses and then gives in and gets up and gets the food "because you are not ashamed to keep on asking."

This follows immediately with the familiar pharse "Ask and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.

The rest of the service is in the earlier post. I would like to include the words from Enriching Our Worship Eucharistic Prayer A, but I have not figured out how to cut and paste into this format yet.

More to follow--Rev. Pam

A Successful Youth Service

On Tues. Oct. 9, I did a Eucharist at Chapel Rock camp, in a "rock formation chapel" for our newly formed Youth Group.



What follows are the elements which I believe made this first worship event for youth at our church work.



1. We started with a song the youth chose the night before: "Live out Loud" by Steven Curtis Chapman, handing out card stock lyrics from a download, suggested by one of the youth.



2. I used "An Order for Celebrating the Holy Eucharist" (Book of Common Prayer, 1979, pp 400-401).



3. The theme of the Retreat was "I faced the Challenge," so I used Romans 5: 1--7, from Good News for Modern Man, read by a young person (practiced the night before). Then did Psalm 118, vvs. 1--7, but keeping the 2nd line always--"His mercy endures forever," as rap. I said the first line beating the rhythm and the youth came in, some clapping, keeping the rap rhythm. For the gospel I used Luke 10:5--10 [Good News bible], with its message of ask and you will receive.



4. Probably the most effective element was my "homily" done as a "man on the street" interviewing a male and female high school student with a mike prop.

I asked them the following questions:

• What obstacles or difficult situations do you face?


• What or who helps you get through these.


• What helps?


• How/where do you find God/Jesus?


• How does this help?


• If Jesus were standing here what would you ask for (it is good to ask for what you want, even if it seems silly)?

5. For Prayers of the people I modified in the moment the First Form (p. 413-415) from A New Zealand Prayer Book, HarperCollins, 1997, mainly citing the areas--"We pray for the world... then concluding our petitions using one line and response said by me.

6. I forgot the peace, so it was put at the end, therefore went straight into the offertory song: "I Can Only Imagine" by Mercyme, which many did sing along with the CD using the lyric sheets.

7. For the Eucharistic Prayer I used Form A from Enriching Our Worship I, reading the Postcommunion Prayer myself (and doing a bit of explaining as I went), with the Youth Director serving the chalice.

8. We ended with the old goodie--"Amen" from the Sidney Poitier movie, and exchanged the peace.

I spent 30 minutes the night before getting volunteers for the different parts and having them pick out the music from a CD personal mix of downloads, which made all the difference in the service. It became THEIR service, not the adults.

Probably the music (one youth cried through the whole service being reminded of a family funeral by the first song, the "Man on the Street," and the setting were some of the key components in the success of this first ever worship service for the youth at St. Luke's, Prescott.

Let me know what has worked for you.

Rev. Pam